Indigenous
New England
"We're Still Here"
Online Exhibit:
"We're Still Here"
Online Exhibit
Contemporary Indigenous New England Artists
Quilts and Weavings
Jazz Autumn, quilt, by Cheryl Savageau, Birchbark Studio
"In 1998, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I began the quilt that became Jazz Autumn. I had never been away from Ndakinna, the Abenaki name for our homeland here in what is now known as northern New England, and missed the presence and colors of the trees, particularly in the autumn.
"Jazz Autumn is a traditional windmill pattern, done with disregard for traditional color values. It takes its form from quarter note triplets, common in jazz improvisation, which plays three notes over two beats. You can see the 3/2 pattern moving from the smaller to the larger blocks.
"The emotional heart of this quilt was also expressed in the poem Red, written around the same time. In Abenaki creation stories we are told that we were made from the trees, that the trees are quite literally our relatives, and their survival and ours are intimately connected.
"Birchbark Studio pays respect to that tradition. I am exploring the power of images in poetry and quilts, the connections between story and mystery."
